have a great night. in the polls last week anthony weiner was a top. now he's a bottom. >> well, have you heard the latest in the anthony weiner sexting scandal? >> anthony weiner. >> anthony weiner. >> weiner! >> just keeps getting worse. >> now minus one campaign manager. >> at this point it's absurd. >> i'm going to leave this to the people of the city of new york to decide. >> he is not going to be the next mayor of new york. >> it's their decision. it's not yours. it's not some sunday talk show pundit. >> i think that he needs to drop out of this race. >> i'm going to leave this to the people of the city of new york to decide. >> i'm not afraid to do the dirty work. >> it's time to get out. >> after all, danger is my middle name. it's also my last name. >> the more things change, the more they stay the same. >> now to the latest on that horrific train crash in spain. >> the driver at the controls now faces multiple counts of negligent homicide. >> a lot going on this morning. >> a court-martial of private

bradley manning. >> the military trial of bradley manning. the judge has announced that she will read a verdict tomorrow. >> pope francis today offered some of the most conciliatory comments from any pontiff. >> breakthrough comments on the role of gays. >> on the roles of gays in the catholic church. >> the pope has returned home after a trip to brazil. >> the pope spoke to reporters for an hour and 20 minutes. >> it shows this is a very different kind of pope. >> he said people should not be marginalized. >> he would not judge gay priests for their sexual orientation. >> this is a big reversal from the pope's predecessor. >> the pontiff also said he wants to expand the role of women in the catholic church. >> when it comes to the issue of women priests, he did not endorse that. >> the issue of women in the clergy. >> he said the church had already spoken on that issue. >> the more things change the more they stay the same. anthony weiner took a little shot at the mass of reporters that have been following him around new york city. it happened at a mayoral forum about affordable housing and

poverty tonight in the bronx in new york city. >> thank you very much for inviting me here. and i want to thank all of the members of the media here. we should have more conversations with cameras around when we're talking about people in need, when we're talking about poverty and inequality. >> in a new quinnipiac university poll out today, anthony weiner has gone from front-runner to the back of the pack. anthony weiner has dropped ten points from 26% to 16%. city council speaker christine quinn now back in the lead with 27%. 53% of likely new york city voters think anthony weiner should pull out of the mayor's race, that is. and 40% say weiner should stay in. weiner's richest hollywood backer is urging him to stay in. haim saban, an entertainment business billionaire who donated to anthony wiener's campaign told the hollywood website the wrap "what anthony weiner has or

hasn't done is an issue between him and his wife. he will make an excellent mayor. and new yorkers will be out of their minds to allow his indiscretions to get in the way of making the right decision for their city. it's none of my, yours, or anyone else's business. because of that, i would encourage him to stay in the race." anthony weiner's campaign manager quit over the weekend. and the "new york daily news" reports that in 2011 anthony weiner used more than $43,000 in campaign funds to hire a private detective to identify the hacker anthony weiner claimed had posted images to his twitter account, even when weiner knew that he was the one who had posted the photographs. anthony weiner said this about the race for mayor today. >> i don't take my cues on policy from the sunday talk shows listening to pundits. i never have. i don't -- i don't take my cues

from the headline writers in newspapers. i never have. those are the very same people that didn't want me to run, that didn't want new yorkers to have this choice in the first place. i'm going to keep talking about the things important to this city. >> jimmy fallon has an idea for how anthony weiner can get new york city voters to take one more look at him. >> i am carlos danger. and today i would like to officially announce my candidacy for mayor of the new york city. if elected, i will turn new york city around and give it exactly what it needs. i'm not afraid to do the dirty work. >> the triumphant return of crystal ball. how long have you been gone? about a month or so? >> something like that. >> and how many babies did you have in that time? >> only the one. not impressive. >> no real miracle there. >> minor miracle. >> so crystal, america is dying to know, they've been very patient.

>> yes. >> your reaction to the anthony weiner madness that has erupted in this city. >> well, there's two issues here, right? there's the actual sexting, what actually happened, and there's the issue of him lying to the public and the trust that's broken. and i think that is really the more important issue. i mean, you think about this. politics is sort of a matter of the heart, if you will, as you know, lawrence. and as you know, ari. and if you're thinking about this in terms of relationship, he is like the terrible boyfriend who cheated on you. he went away, you kicked him to the curb. he went away for two years. he came back and said i've changed, i promise i've changed,

and then he does it again. you are not going to stick with him for too long. there have been comparisons made to bill clinton, are we being hypocritical in the way we're judging anthony weiner here? but he has no other track record of success for us to weigh this against. there are no other mitigating factors where we'd say, but gosh, we want to overlook this because he'd be so great in office. so it's hard for me to see what he is bringing to this race right now other than his own ego. >> ari, there is this great possibility for weiner here, which is that he -- if he can feel liberated from the pressure of possibly winning this thing and feels like i've got nothing left to lose here except to present myself as the best possible candidate i can and free of certain fears i might have of offending this group or that group because i anthony weiner don't think i can win, he could then actually become something really interesting to watch. >> yeah. he could be sort of unspooled -- >> he's been pretty interesting to watch already, i must say. >> he has actually already. okay. >> but to your point, he's out there at the affordable housing forum or he's out there on these stages and he's able to maybe push more issues and feel like

he's got the whole world against him. it's a time for self-reflection and selfie reflection. but when you look at what he's done here, there's a desire to make it feel like he's doing something that's so much worse that no one can get their arms around. and i think that's actually an interesting part of this story that tells us what's wrong with us and why we have such a problem with these sex scandals, because it brings back this sort of schizophrenic part of american culture where we're very puritanical and we want to take him down but we're also sex crazed and we love talking about it. and i want to make one point about the sexting here. anthony weiner has brought sexting back. we're all talking about sexting now in the political media and the broader media. but a lot of people sext, lawrence. and if we're going it talk about this -- >> really? >> yes. let me tell you one example. snapchat is an application you have on your iphone, and it's a

way that you can trade or send photos to someone and they disintegrate in ten seconds or less. no hard copy. that's what snapchat does. now, what do we know about the existence -- >> are you saying this is going to help him with like the youth vote? >> let me tell you something. this same scandal in 30 years will go over differently. but snapchat you say what does that mean if there's that application? >> well-i -- >> let me give you something to think about. 200 million photos on snapchat every day. 200 million photos. majority of people who use snapchat in a poll say they have received dirty pictures that way. okay? we are talking about something that a lot of young -- >> but we're also talking -- >> 200 million a day. >> 200 million. and ari -- 200 million? >> what's the website again? >> log right on to snapchat. free advertising. >> the other element, here, is he's not just sexting with someone. he is using his position of power to essentially lure in young girls -- >> oh, come on. this one? she's on every tv show she can possibly sell herself to. she's marching down the beach at santa monica saying please take

a picture of me. he didn't lure this one in. the -- guess who has jumped on the anti-anthony weiner bandwagon. i'll just show you this little piece from "hardball" today. >> can you just say that now? you don't think he should be mayor of new york? >> fair point. that is correct. >> he should not be mayor of new york? >> that is correct. >> he doesn't take the who am i to judge position that you will actually hear the pope taking later in this show. >> right. >> there's eliot spitzer, i'm willing to sit in judgment of others. >> yeah, it's a tough place for him in particular to sit. and i do think that there's a distinction between the two of them. i don't think it's fair to lump them together. because as far as we know at least eliot spitzer hasn't gone back to his old ways.

so -- and he's also not asking for a promotion. so i do think there's a difference there. and he has a record of accomplishment. >> but he had physical carnal sex -- >> he touched somebody. he committed maybe two crimes in the process. one, a currency control crime of withdrawals over $10,000. issues of how much money he withdrawed in cash -- withdrew in cash. and also he engaged in the crime involved with prostitution, which anthony weiner hasn't done. i find it very interesting that people are weighing these things and trying to say one's worse than the other. >> right. >> or clinton's worse than this or he's not worse than clinton. all this stuff. and i'm wondering, have we become more prudish, more conservative? by the way, i don't believe there is a more prudish group on earth than the political press corps and pundit world. they all live at a level far on the extreme side of prudishness compared to america itself. but it's fascinating to me that -- it may be something in the graphics of the weiner story that makes it harder for the political media to face than any of these previous scandals that they've been up against. >> i think that's right. and i also think that there's not just a judgment about the

sex and the actual act and where does that stand on its merits. there's also a judgment of the entire person and what they're bringing in terms of their -- >> why not do that with everybody else who gets -- >> but i think they are. i think that's the point. is there's a sense not only that weiner is flawed in this way but also that he's not bringing a whole lot to the table except his own ego and narcissism in terms of this race. >> i dissent from that. >> it's a very different situation. >> i don't think the political media has made a fine-grain analysis of him as a leader. i think they have something that reporters and lawyers have always had in common. they love evidence. this is a story with a lot of evidence. >> exhibits. >> exhibits. pictures. self-inflicted wounds. i'm not voting for anthony weiner, as i told you last week. but the idea that he should be subjected to this test just because there's so much more evidence of in world we're living in and the way he did it i think doesn't wash -- >> hold on. but it's not just the political elite.

you showed the polling numbers that a majority of likely democratic voters in this city think that he should get out of the race. so it's not just people -- >> for the moment. but those numbers work both ways -- >> he was talking on television -- >> he was number one -- he was number one two weeks ago when they also knew this about him. they were all over the place. >> and remember, in this poll he's gone from top to bottom. but there's only 10 points 1:001 points separating him and the front-runner, and he's got 16% of new york with him tonight still. >> you just want to talk about him for the rest of the race. >> lawrence-i think those are the snapchat voters. >> there you go. krystal ball, this discussion was just empty without you. we needed you here -- >> you know, i actually watched you guys last week, and i was like i want to be there. >> thank you very much. krystal ball and ari melber, both. >> thanks, lawrence. coming up, mitt romney is trying to rewrite his most amazing moment as a presidential candidate, that 47% thing. now he says "actually, i didn't say that." the delusional mitt romney has

worked his way back into the "rewrite." and today the pope had some extraordinary things to say about gay people and women's role in the church. sister simone and jesuit priest james martin will answer the question, which is not only half a joke. is the pope a catholic? and north carolina has passed an extreme voter suppression law. today the president and attorney general met with civil rights leaders to strategize the way forward under the voting rights act now that the supreme court has limited its use. and later a real fight, this is real, erupted between chris christie and rand paul. you've got to see it. that's coming up. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [ male announcer ] if you can't stand the heat, get off the test track.

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if voters in virginia are using google to find out more about their republican candidate for governor ken cuccinelli, they're coming up with an interesting set of choices. after his name the very first phrase that pops up, ken cuccinelli, sodomy.

"the last word" hereby takes credit for much of the google traffic involving ken cuccinelli and sodomy since we were the first to reveal to a national television audience exactly what ken cuccinelli thinks sodomy is and why he thinks all forms of human sex other than married heterosexual vaginal sex should be illegal in virginia. up next, an extraordinary change in tone from the pope on the matter of homosexuality and the priesthood and sin itself and the role of women in the church. sister simone will join me. that's next. i feel i have many

i feel i have many weaknesses and problems. i am a sinner. those are not my words. and no, they are not yet the words of anthony weiner. but they were spoken today by the pope of the roman catholic church. in an extraordinary 82-minute exchange with reporters on the plane back from rio to rome, where more than 3 million people attended a papal mass on copacabana beach, the pope answered a range of potentially difficult questions with ease, including one about the existence of a so-called gay lobby of cardinals operating inside the vatican. previous popes have of course been judging gay people and

judging them harshly. in 2005 pope benedict signed a document that said homosexual men should not be priests. when asked today about a monsignor in the vatican who was suspected of being involved in a gay tryst, the pope said that case was investigated according to canon law and no such evidence was revealed.

but the pope made a very important distinction about that case. since the allegations involved consenting adults, the pope said that what they were investigating were issues of sin, not crimes like sexually abusing children. and the pope pointed out that when someone sins and confesses god not only forgives, he forgets, according to catholic teaching. about such forgiven sins the pope said today, "we don't have a right to not forget." joining me now on what those words signal for the catholic church, sister simone campbell, leader of nuns on the bus, which is a part of the network of national catholic social justice lobby. and father james martin, editor at large for "america" magazine. sister simone, the pope also touched on the role of women in the church. he said, "we still do not have a

theology of women. we need to create one. the church has discussed the ordination of women bishops and has decided against it. john paul ii gave a definitive answer to this. so that door is closed. but let us remember that mary is more important than the bishop's apostles, so women in the church are more important than bishops and priests." sister simone, what's your reaction to that? >> well, i'm not sure that we feel we're more important in the church. i think the pope's statements evidence, one, that he node that women are smart, are educated, have a lot to offer, and commented on many roles that women could play in the church. i think on the issue of ordination, however, he did say that that door is closed. but just on sunday we had the reading from the gospel of the

story of the man who went and pounded on the door of his neighbor and kept pounding until he got what he wanted, which was food for another person. and so i sort of feel like, well, if the door is closed then maybe that alludes to the scripture where we just keep pounding long enough and jesus said it's like prior if you're annoying enough, if you're persistent something good will happen. >> father martin, just picking the words apart, as we do with popes, i'm reading -- and this may be a translation issue. but he said the church has discussed the ordination of women bishops and has decided against it. is that word bishops the operative word there? is he leaving open possibly the lower ranks in the clergy? >> i don't think so. i think that was probably more of a slip of the tongue. he's talking about ordination. as sister simone was saying, that the door was closed. >> but when he says we still do not have a theology of women, we

need to create one, a statement that broad seems to also include the possibility that that closed door in this institution, which has had many closed doors in the past that have opened, that that closed door may not be permanently closed. >> i think actually what he's looking at is more the theology of women adds as leaders in the church too. he had talked about even if we cannot ordain them, which he has said before is not going to happen, how can we take them sort of more involved in leadership? can they be heads of vatican congregations? do you have to be ordained in order to be a leader in the church? i think that's an interesting comment. and i think as you point out to say that we need a deeper theology of women means that he feels like the theology of women we have is not sufficiently deep, which is a big thing for a pope to say. >> yeah, it's a very big statement. and on the issue of homosexuality he said the catechism of the catholic church explains this very well, it says they, meaning gay people, should not be marginalized because of

this orientation but that they must be integrated into society. sister simone, that's a big change in rhetoric at least for a pope. >> oh, absolutely, lawrence. and i think what it indicates is his pastoral approach, the fact that pope francis knows people and is willing to engage as jesus did with the struggles of our time. i mean, pope francis speaks often for the poor, the marginalized, the folks who are pushed out. and this is another example that within the church structure certainly gay people have been pushed to the margins and he's saying that that's the wrong way forward. it's a consistent story for him. >> and father martin, he talked about in that rumored story about the monsignor that look, what you're talking about here is sin, and that's confessable and that is forgivable if it occurs, and that itself is a

very -- a much more kind of generous and it seems to me clearly christian view than has previously been expressed. >> well, sister simone was saying it's a very pastoral approach. he's even used the word "gay" which has not been used before. they'd always use words like homosexual, same sex, attraction, very clinical words. he's doing that. he's speak. and when you see him speaking, it's a very pastoral tone. he's saying as you said before who aim to judge? which we have not heard ever. and the other thing is he has not sort of appended that statement with something negative. he hasn't said, well, gays are welcome in the church but -- it was a purely positive, welcoming argument. and he quotes the catechism by saying they shouldn't be marginalized. i was stunned. and i think most of the reporters on the plane were stunned too. >> and sister simone, he apparently deliberately chooses not to talk about certain things because he knows that they -- it's very hard to make positive-sounding statements about them.

specifically, he avoided talking about abortion on this trip, he avoided talking about same-sex marriage, and although the church officially opposes those things the choice of a pope to avoid certain subjects is almost in a certain kind of way a matter of, in local law enforcement, how tightly are we going tone force the speed limit and that sort of thing. it does give people a sense of what this pope thinks is important. >> well, i think it shows what he thinks is important, but i also think it shows that he's highly attuned to what are very painful, divisive issues within the catholic church in that overemphasis on a couple of very narrow points. and what he's really working hard at doing is revealing the whole gospel, working from the whole gospel, that affirms all of life, including folks that are gay. it was a very pro-life stance that he took to say that he's

not judgmental, he welcomes everyone. i mean, that is where the fullness of life is. and it's just refreshing to hear it. >> and he's got a catholic constituency in the united states that is more in favor of same-sex marriage than the general population, slightly more in favor of abortion than the general population, and he can alienate them or not. he chose on this trip not to alienate them. we're out of town. i'm sorry. sister simone campbell and father james martin, the official chaplin of "the last word." thank you both very much for joining me tonight. >> pleasure. >> thank you. coming up, north carolina's governor is about to sign a voter suppression law that he has already actually admitted he hasn't even read. and big fight now. serious fight. rand paul and chris christie. 2016 republican presidential campaign is under way. that's coming up. pill to help protect your eye health as you age... would you take it?

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in the spotlight tonight north carolina's voter suppression law. the bill will suppress voting in north carolina. those are the words of the conservative winston-salem journal, a newspaper which endorsed republican governor pat mccrory, who intends to sign the bill passed by the republican legislature. in today's outraged editorial the "winston-salem journal" said "governor pat mccrory and legislative republicans began the 2013 session with a -- with

talk of a voter identification law that would solve a voter fraud problem that doesn't exist and any pretense of sincerity of the integrity of elections died last week when lawmakers pass the a bill that rigs the voting system in their favor. the state board of elections found only one case of voter frayed in 2012. there has been, however, increased voter turnout recently made possible by a number of recent voting reforms. republicans didn't always like the results of the better turnout. they chose last week to turn back the clock and try to suppress as many poor, elderly, college-aged and minority voters as possible. this elections bill is a cynical effort to take from certain groups of americans their most cherished right. when asked about the bill at a press conference, governor mccrory revealed that he actually has no idea what is in the bill he intends to sign.

>> cutting early voting by a week, even trimming a high school civics program that helped people register in advance of their 18th birthdays, how do those stop voter fraud? >> well, first of all, i could -- i don't have time to cover all -- how many did you mention? >> just three. high school -- >> i don't know enough -- i'm sorry. i haven't seen that part of the bill. >> at the white house president obama and attorney general eric holder met with more than a dozen civil rights leaders and local elected officials today to discuss how to use the voting rights act to enforce voter fairness after the supreme court overturned a of the voting rights act last month. joining me now, barbara arnwine,

the president and executive director of the lawyers committee for civil rights under law. she met with the president today. and joining me from raleigh, north carolina, bryan perlmutter and ashley mclean. brian grew up in charlotte and recently graduated from north carolina state university. ashley mclean grew up in raleigh and will be a junior at howard university. ashley, there are provisions in this bill in north carolina targeted at college students there making voting life a little more difficult for them. could you explain some of those elements of the bill? >> yes. the bill specifically targets college students, specifically mentioning that college i.d.s will not be a proper form of identification for the 2016 elections. it directly attacks me as a college student and a member of a minority group. >> and brian, is there also a provision in there that college students have to vote where their cars are registered? or just things to make it more difficult for them to actually

vote in the residential community of the college where they might be attending. >> yeah. the bill does a number of things. that's one of them. another -- it makes big cuts to early voting. and i know a number of college students and myself have taken advantage of, you know, the one stop early voting, being able to register and vote at the same time. a number of college students take advantage of that. especially where we are. it will have a big impact on voter turnout. >> and barbara arnwine, one of the other things the bill does is it prevents people who are going to turn 18 the day before the election or the day of the election and legally eligible to vote, it prevents them from preregistering so that when their birthday arrives the day

before the day of election day they will be able to vote. now, that strikes me as something that the federal government could take action against, using what is left of the voting rights act. >> yes. well, i think that obviously, as i said earlier this week, north carolina has introduced the worst voter suppression bill in the country. they are now the new ground zero of this viet against voter suppression. what they have done in this legislation is tried to roll back the clock on the tremendous gains that have been made by voters in north carolina to participate in the franchise. it is absolutely imperative that the justice department, that groups like the lawyers committee and other legal organizations do everything we can to make sure the full force of the law is brought to bear on making sure that this law does not affect any future elections. >> barbara, was this law specifically discussed in the meeting with the president today and with attorney general eric

holder? >> i would say that the meeting today, the attorney general and the president were very focused on committing the resources of the full administration, the full federal government to doing everything they can to protect the right to vote. that that's what every american should hear, that your president, your attorney general are committed to making sure that you have the right to vote. they're going to do everything that's necessary. so we talked about the movement that was done, motion that was filed by the attorney general in texas. and north carolina came up for just a quick moment where they talked about clearly this is a bad deal and needs to be examined. >> ashley, you and bryan and others have been involved in the moral monday protests there in north carolina this summer. what price have you paid for being involved in that, and what about your family and other friends' involvement in it?

>> i mean, i wouldn't say that there's a price i have paid. i'm a college student. i don't have a full-time job right now. so i feel like if anybody should come out and it's us, it's important for us to be involved and for me to show that students and young people out here really do care, i feel like the only price we paid is our time and our energy and that's a price worthy to pay to fight for this worthy cause. >> and bryan -- >> this is me going -- >> and this has been going on for 13 mondays. and we've seen it grow and grow every single monday. and today was the largest moral monday so far, with thousands of people from across north carolina coming together. we've seen as this has grown that people are only getting more energized and more excited to continue to come out and organize and stand up against these attacks. i mean, i really think the question, you know, is what

happens if we don't stand up because we're paying a larger price if that happens as they're attacking one of, you know, the pillars of democracy in north carolina by attacking voting rights. >> and bryan, how many of you have been arrested in the course of these protests? >> yeah so, on the first moral monday 17 people got arrested. and now 13 mondays later there's been over 930 arrests in north carolina. with thousands of more people coming out to demonstrate. >> barbara arnwine, bryan perlmutter, and ashley mclean, thank you all for joining us tonight. >> thank you. coming up, mitt romney actually tries to rewrite what he said about 47% of the american people. he thinks you don't remember. ♪

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you're not just looking for a house. you're looking for a place for your life to happen. president obama dined with his former secretary of state hillary rodham clinton today. the white house said the private lunch had nothing on the agenda other than friendship. tomorrow morning hillary clinton will have breakfast with vice president joe biden. and coming up, mitt romney tries to rewrite his 47% tape. >> okay. that was ridiculous. no, that was crazy. america, it's intern week here at "the last "the last word." josie ortegon. did you have rehearsal time for this? >> yes, i did. >> but you're an old pro already. >> thank you. >> it's your last week. you're going back to school. will you ever watch this show when you're back at --

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mitt romney is trying to rewrite mitt romney. romney wants to change the wording a little about the most memorable thing he said in his second and final presidential campaign, which of course was this. >> there are 47% of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. all right in there are 47% who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that -- that they are victims, who believe that government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they're entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it. and they will vote for this president no matter what. and so my job is not to worry

about those people. >> and now romney would like to cut out the part about the 47% not taking personal responsibility and care for their lives. romney insisted to the "washington post's" dan balz for his new book "collision 2012" that his 47% comment was taken out of context. in an excerpt from the book published in the "washington post" yesterday romney repeatedly insists that he did not say what he actually said. when dan balz says to him, but when you said there are 47% who won't take personal responsibility, romney interrupts him and says, "actually, i didn't say that. that's how it began to be perceived and so i had to ultimately respond to the perception because perception is reality." yeah, and reality is reality, too. and the reality is romney said this. >> i'll never convince them that they should take personal

responsibility and care for their lives. >> dan balz has released some of the audio of his interview with romney where romney complains about how his words were twisted. >> that this was perceived as he's saying oh, 47% of the people he doesn't care about or he's insensitive to or they don't care responsibility for their life. no, no. i'm saying 47% of the people don't pay taxes and therefore they don't warm to our tax message. >> don't you miss hearing mitt's voice and his mischievously twisted thinking? there's mitt romney complaining about how his words were twisted by the obama campaign and by the media and in order to do that he has to twist his own words. the truth is the 47% video shot by scott prouty, who was working as a bartender at that event, was always played on this program and elsewhere in full because it was so freaking amazing. it was impossible to twist

romney's words to make them sound worse than they were, which is why we kept playing the actual video over and over again, night after night. and it is the actual words romney spoke that pushed his poll numbers down once those words were heard. meanwhile, the romney campaign specialized in twisting president obama's words. >> speaking about small business and businesses of all kind, he said this -- if you've got a business, you didn't build that. somebody else made that happen. >> after all that work and in a bad economy it sure doesn't help to hear from their president that government gets the credit. what they deserve to hear is the truth. yes, you did build that! >> it was barack obama who said "you didn't build it. it doesn't belong to you." >> and yes, mr. president, they

did build it. >> of course, what the president said was that if you created a small business you didn't build the roads and other infrastructure you used to make that small business work. >> if you were successful, someone along the way gave you some help. there was a great teacher somewhere in your life. somebody helped to create this unbelievable american system that we have that allowed you to thrive. somebody invested in roads and bridges. if you've got a business, that -- you didn't build that. somebody else made that happen. the internet didn't get invented on its own. government research created the internet so then all the companies could make money off the internet. the point is that when we succeed we succeed because of our individual initiative but also because we do things together.

>> a lot of words got twisted in the 2012 presidential campaign, as they always do, but no words were more carefully or accurately reported than romney's comments about 47% to the american people. "i'll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives." those were his words. those were mitt romney's words. and we all heard him say that because scott prouty gave that video to david corn of "mother jones," and then david brought it to the world. so in honor of david corn's big scoop, the most important scoop of the 2012 campaign, i'm going to give david corn the last word on this tonight. writing for "mother jones" today under the headline "mitt romney's incredible 47% denial actually i didn't say that," david corn's last line was "romney still cannot take responsibility himself." right now, seven years of music is being streamed.

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big fight has erupted between rand paul and chris christie. that's next.

i didn't start this one, and i don't plan on starting things by criticizing other republicans. but if they want to make me the target this will get it back in spades.

>> the guy who did start this one was chris christie. last week chris christie criticized republicans like rand paul who are critical of the government's intelligence-gathering methods. >> this strain of libertarianism that's going through both parties right now and making big headlines i think is a very dangerous thought. as the governor now of a state that lost the second most people on 9/11 behind the state of new york and still seeing those families, sean, i love all these esoteric debates people are getting in -- >> senator rand paul, for example? >> listen, you can name any number of people who have engaged in it and he's one of them. these esoteric, intellectual debates. i want them to come to new jersey and sit across from the widows and the orphans and have that conversation. and they won't. because that's a much tougher conversation to have. >> yesterday rand paul added this twist to his fight with chris christie.

>> the people who want to criticize me and call names, they're precisely the same people who are unwilling to cut the spending and are gimme, gimme, gimme all my sandy money now, those are the people who are bankrupting the government and not letting enough money be left over for national defense. so i think it's precisely those people who are making us weak in defense. >> in fact, chris christie's new jersey pays much more into the federal government through taxation than it gets back in federal spending. for every dollar in tax revenue that new jersey sends to washington it gets back only 77 cents. where does the 23 cents go? to rand paul's kentucky and other states. think of them as the gimme states, if you will, who take much more from the federal government than they ever pay for in federal tax revenue. for every dollar rand paul's kentucky sends to washington kentucky gets back $1.57.

chris christie might be seeking the electoral votes of rand paul's gimme gimme state someday. so he will probably use a different line of defense against rand paul's gimme gimme gimme nonsense. joining me now, steve mcmahon, veteran democratic strategist and co-founder of purple strategies. steve, who are you betting on in this fight? >> i love it. i hope they go and they fight to a draw and they fight a very long time, 15 rounds. >> listen, i think rand paul has taken on something pretty big when he tries to fight with chris christie on this kind of thing within the republican party. >> yes. >> his father got exactly 8% of the delegates -- >> that's right. >> -- last time using the paul family vision of foreign policy and national security in the republican primaries. >> and these attacks are most effective when they reinforce an underlying suspicion, which is why the attack on paul for being

kind of out of step with republicans on national security issues is effective. but so is the attack on christie for being a big spender from a blue state. it's going to be great to watch this thing play out. it's going to be interesting and fun for democrats. >> well, i don't think rand paul has been up against someone who is as good on his feet as chris christie can be when he's good. >> no, that's absolutely right. you can see it there when he said have those people come sit down with the victims. that sounded more like joe biden than a republican. he's got it in the gut. he's a good politician. >> and as you said at the outset, this is exactly what the democrats were hoping for. they didn't expect it to start so soon. >> didn't expect it to start so soon, but boy, isn't it great. we're going to get three years of this show. and i'm going to be right at the front row waiting and cheering and eating popcorn. >> it's like going on a whale

hunt. for chris christie, it's like swatting flies. >> thank you. the weiners and the clintons. let's play "hardball." good evening. i'm chris matthews in washington. let me start with this. this thing in new york is getting a lot bigger than some sleazy e-mails. there are larger stakes in this matter than the political future of a desperate former congressman. it comes down to one word, reputation. now, there are cynics out there who will sneer that politicians and politics itself cannot go any lower in public esteem. for those i can't really help you. if you've lost hope, you're pretty much on your own.